Focus E15 campaign is marking 10 years of existence/resistance and fighting for housing by hosting a ceilidh courtesy of the fantastic E15 ceilidh band. Expect live music, lots of laughter and positive vibes in an wonderful venue.
The word Ceilidh (kay-lee) descends from the Gaelic word for a gathering. The beauty of a ceilidh (similar to a Barn Dance) is that everyone can take part, young or old, experienced dancers, beginners, adults and children alike.
Plus DJ daggers will be on hand to keep the vibes upbeat.
Remember to buy your tickets in advance to ensure your entry, although there will be a few tickets on the door too.
Together we are stronger! We look forward to welcoming you there.
Date: Saturday 23 September Doors: 7:30pm -11pm Venue: Round Chapel Old School Rooms, 2 Powerscroft Road, Hackney, London, E5 0PU
Monday 22 May, Newham’s annual full council meeting in the Old Town Hall Stratford.
Focus E15 campaign joined members of London Renters Union (LRU) and PEACH outside the town hall. With placards, banners and flags flying there were speeches and chants on the megaphone. It was lively and militant. Every councillor who went in got a leaflet about the LRU campaign SafeHomesNow. Newham council must take action against landlords who rent unsafe homes, who don’t respond to tenants’ issues and who share details with the Home Office of a tenant who is a migrant.
We are now near the end of May 2023 – the month when the Labour Mayor and council promised that every family with children would have moved out of 10 Victoria Street. But no, over 50 families are still stuck in the substandard overcrowded inappropriate accommodation, sharing beds, no space to play, and with no space to do homework.
So we decided to go in to the meeting to make sure all the councillors and members of the public present are up to date with this matter. They would have preferred to have continued the chats in the corridor but we thought it time to go in with people directly effected by housing insecurity and living in overcrowded housing misery.
As instructed, members of the town hall security staff were heavy-handed and pushed pulled and dragged the protesters out. After the meeting resumed, Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz was forced to comment, reaffirming her commitment to move families with children out from Victoria Street, with all the excuses the council repeatedly gives as to why it is so difficult, and then spoke of the millions of pounds the council is going to spend for ‘option appraisals’ and the ‘reconceptualising of the building’ at 10 Victoria Street.
We chanted Deeds not Words as we left the council chamber, our heads held high, determined to fight on for housing justice for all.
If you want to take action on housing, join Focus E15 campaign on the weekly Saturday stall 12-2pm outside Wilko’s on Stratford Broadway, follow us on facebook for the latest information about meetings and events.
Our demands on May 1st 2023 : All families must be moved from 10 Victoria Street as a matter of urgency , into suitable and long term accommodation.
Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, stated at a council meeting one year ago that by May 2023 “I will be making sure all of those families with children will be moved out of Victoria Street and no other families will be placed there.” However this has not happened , adding to the remaining families sense of ‘moral injustice’ and growing anger. We will not stop campaigning until all the families are moved out of Victoria Street into suitable accommodation.
Open all empty homes in the borough to house homeless individuals and families. We are aware of empty and suitable council homes, in a borough with one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. This is outrageous – open these council homes now!
Repair, refurbish and repopulate the Carpenters Estate. People need long-term council homes now, not shoddy Temporary Accommodation! In the interests of the community and the planet, we say repair, refurbish and repopulate this estate with long-term council tenants!
End the use of ‘intentional homelessness’. We call on Newham Council to reject the malicious practice of labelling individuals and parents ‘intentionally homeless’. No one is intentionally homeless and the council must stop using this tool to shirk their responsibilities on homelessness. Furthermore, the use of threats by housing officers to parents such as we will rehouse your children and not you must cease immediately.
We say to Newham Council – resist or resign! Join the campaign on the streets next Saturday from 12-2pm outside Wilkos on the Broadway in Stratford to plan the next actions!
Almost a year ago, in June 2022, at a full Newham council meeting in east London, Labour Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz publicly referred to the annual council meeting the previous month, when residents of 10 Victoria Street, Brimstone House bravely stood up to protest against their appalling living conditions. The Mayor’s words at this meeting were:
‘I have provided a clear undertaking and direction to the council that by May 2023 every family will have been moved out to alternative accommodation and we will be stopping the placement of families with children living there from May.’ She added that ‘over the coming months officers will be diligently working on every case’.
Now it is nearing the end of April 2023 and almost 60 families with children are still in the building and the Mayor and Director of Housing have admitted that they will not all be moved out by the end of May. They have gone back on their pledge.
10 Victoria Street is filthy, overcrowded, unfit for families, where toddlers’ development is held back, older children have to do homework on the floor or the bed, children and parents are forced to share the bed to sleep and tiny spaces are labelled one-bedroom flats and therefore don’t qualify as being overcrowded.
The Labour council says it is facing the most challenging housing need. But breaking promises to desperate families who held hope for ten months of something better, hits an all time low.
Labour local authority landlords like Newham have presided over some of the biggest sell offs of council homes, while also overseeing managed decline and demolition of others. While housing associations, who own and manage 60% of social housing stock in England and Wales, repeatedly fail to address damp, mould and disrepair and yet make millions of pounds in profits every year.
Read the recent expose by Michael Buchanan on the BBC’s website about 1000s of children forced to share beds with their parents and the terrible effects that overcrowding has on family life, featuring Focus E15 campaigners and fighters for housing justice: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65312086
Focus E15 campaign stands with those who raise their voice on behalf of everyone who faces substandard housing. The campaign is working with residents, legal caseworkers and journalists to raise the issue of poor quality housing by taking action, creating political art and giving people the confidence to speak out about what is happening.
Filming of brave resident at Victoria street by the BBC in April 2023
Overcrowding is bad for our health!
Newham Labour Council no more broken promises, rehouse the families of 10 Victoria Street, Brimstone House now
Join Focus E15 campaign on our weekly stall in Stratford Broadway E15, 12-2pm every Saturday.
International Women’s Day started over a hundred years ago by the struggle of working class women to form trade unions and fight for the right to vote. There is a rich history of women leading from the front, fighting for their rights. From needle trade workers in New York in 1908, and Clara Zetkin in Germany organising the International Socialist Women’s conference in the same year, to the insurrectionary women of Petrograd in 1917 in Russia demanding Peace and Bread, to the women in China in 1919 fighting for women’s pay and condition and the end of child labour.
We will not forget Sylvia Pankhurst, anti-fascist, communist, feminist, internationalist, in East London who founded the East London Federation of Suffragettes, after being expelled from the Women’s Social and Political Union, for standing in solidarity with the Irish workers in the Dublin Lockout in 1913.
We celebrate the women of Cuba, such as Celia Sanchez who played a leading role in the early revolutionary movement in the 1950s, Vilma Espin who led the setting up of the Cuban Federation of Women in 1960 after the triumph of the Revolution, to Mariela Castro who founded the current National Centre for Sex Education.
To all the anti-imperialist fighters for women’s emancipation with examples like Nawal El Sadawi from Egypt who fought to show how patriarchy and capitalism oppress women. And we stand with the brave steadfast Palestinian women whose daily resistance inspires us.
In Britain today the fight goes on as the cost-of-living crisis disproportionately affects women. Immense pressure is put on women in the home, in terms of childcare and domestic labour, and in the workplace, women have worse pay and conditions than men. The struggle is against domestic violence, racism, sexism, disability discrimination and against the homophobia and transphobia of a capitalist system that benefits from women’s continued oppression.
In 2023, Focus E15 campaign joins residents of Victoria Street, to fight together against a Labour council which continues to give pathetic excuses for the ongoing suffering of families with children, mostly single mothers, housed in rooms built for one young person, where parents and children share beds and there’s no space for growth and development, homework or play. In the fifth richest country in the world, this is truly shameful. Women will continue to fight back.
Join us to celebrate our history of struggle and our continued resistance on the weekly stall Saturdays 12-2pm outside Wilko’s on Stratford Broadway E15 and at our next public meeting on Saturday 1 April.
Newham Council have publicly pledged that all families will be moved out of the cramped, unsuitable building at 10 Victoria Street, Stratford (formerly known as Brimstone House and Focus E15 Foyer) by May 2023. This is after Focus E15 campaign and residents protested and complained, time and time again, about the overcrowded and unsafe living conditions in the building.
This week the campaign learned that back in December 2022, the council presented at an internal meeting, the findings of an Options Appraisal regarding the future of 10 Victoria Street – which included an option to demolish (called redevelopment) as well as an option to refurbish. The crucial point is that the report recommends demolition (known as Option 1: Redevelopment), although the report also states:
“given that the lifecycle environmental impact of a redevelopment is greater than a refurbishment, it may be that a different decision could be made, depending on the political priorities of Members.”
What are the political priorities of Newham Council? And is providing safe and suitable homes for working class communities and organising to protect the planet, mutually exclusive?
A Guardian article published last week declared Britain is addicted to the wrecking ball. It’s trashing our heritage and the planet. The article explains that since 1997, the demolition of at least 161 council and housing association estates has resulted in a loss of around 55,000 homes and the displacement of an estimated 131,000 people. This suits the ruling class parties just fine as more people are pushed into the lucrative private rental market place and more demolition of our public housing occurs, without any concern for the environmental damage taking place. Pro-capitalist political parties have even ensured that any new house building is VAT exempt, meaning it’s automatically 20% more expensive to refurbish than demolish. Carbon emissions occur when demolition takes place and are a leading cause of climate change. Incidentally, the use of ‘carbon offsetting’, so beloved by local authorities up and down the country as a mitigating measure, has largely been debunked.
Newham council says it takes climate change seriously and it has declared a climate emergency. They have stated they want Stratford to be a zero carbon district, and for Newham to be carbon neutral by 2030 and carbon zero by 2050. Already these sentiments seem like words rather than actions, as Newham Council’s plans to demolish the Carpenters Estate mean that demolition and construction activities are predicted to peak by 2028.
Neither our campaign nor residents have been consulted on the future plans for the building at 10 Victoria Street which are leaning towards demolition, when this should be a last resort. Why doesn’t this Labour Council take inspiration from refurbishment projects, such as the award-winning Grand Parc housing estate in Bordeaux?
Focus E15 campaign is engaging with architects to submit alternative plans for Victoria Street to Newham Council which aims to provide suitable secure council housing for those in need whilst refusing to add to the destruction of our planet.
It really is exciting to get back into hosting in person public meetings again, as the campaign’s tenth year approaches. The need for innovative campaigns, built through direct experiences and political commitment, creating new knowledge in the process are vital if we are going to move debates on housing into action on the streets and to inform the political struggles that lie ahead.
We are humans, not numbers! We demand to live in dignity and security. The meeting was attended by current campaigners, loyal supporters and new friends of the campaign. Staunch fighters from Brimstone House Victoria Street were there with their children and we heard a moving dignified account of life in temporary accommodation.
We also cheered and clapped about the campaign’s recent victory – overturning the insulting accusation of intentional homelessness and forcing Newham Labour council to reverse a discharge of housing duty. The important points made about the law and its limitations by guest speaker social justice barrister David Renton, rang true. He states in his recent book,
‘Instead of seeking change within the bounds of the law, social movements should rather look to their ability to force change, their willingness to protest, occupy and strike’.
We pledged to continue to educate, agitate and organise, raise consciousness and stand together with solidarity and support for each other.
David Renton talked about the uses and limits of the law in relation to housing justice at the campaign meeting in January 2023.
A belated Happy New Year to all our comrades and supporters. See you all soon on the street stall and at our next actions and meetings throughout the coming year.
A mother and child, survivors of domestic abuse were labelled by the Council as having made themselves intentionally homeless, and therefore, the council discharged its housing duty to this family.
The family, who are living in an overcrowded hostel, had questioned the Council over an unsuitable offer of housing because the new property was in an area that is local to the perpetrator. What follows from a discharge of housing duty is eviction and often, a referral to social services. The family were extremely frightened and upset.
Due to having no option but to fight back, this mother was involved in collective action with Focus E15 campaign, in a process that culminated in a demonstration outside and inside the full council meeting on 16 January, at the Old Town Hall in Stratford. Council officials responded by offering a face to face meeting.
After this meeting took place on 19 January the council was forced to reverse the decision to discharge their duty. The woman said:
The public support I have been shown since we protested at the Newham Council meeting on Monday has been amazing. On the basis of this pressure, today Newham Council scrapped the decision to discharge their duty to me and I am no longer threatened with intentional homelessness. Protest works.
Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz was also forced by pressure and protest in May 2022 to promise that all families with children would be moved out of the notorious 10 Victoria Street hostel by May 2023 as it is no place for children to grow up in. However, threatening eviction as an exit strategy from this building is a shameful moment for the Council. We must ensure that decent homes are now found.
Stand with all those families still languishing in Victoria Street hostel, and with all those moved out into damp, cold homes with mould that the council has allowed to fall into disrepair.
Housing Justice and Respect! No Evictions! No Excuses! No Threats!
Focus E15 will be celebrating on the street stall outside Wilko’s this Saturday from 12pm.
Focus E15 campaign in London send solidarity and strength to the Wyndford Residents and the Young Communist League for the Wyndford High Rise occupation in Glasgow.
What a victory this is and we salute your courage.
This action will shine a spotlight on the barbaric practices of councils up and down Britain, Labour, Tory, SNP, who sell off every bit of land and demolish homes at the expense of people’s lives.
In its drive for profit, capitalism will stop at nothing.
Focus E15 occupied boarded up flats on the Carpenters Estate in east London in 2014. The residents had been battling with the Labour council for years at that point and the battle is ongoing as over four hundred flats still lie empty on the estate in a borough where 25% of households are overcrowded and 1 in 12 children are homeless.
Last year Newham council paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to get the resident ballot they wanted on the Carpenters Estate and now ‘regeneration’ is about to start. But as you say in your statement, this is gentrification and social cleansing and the erasing of working class communities.
All power to the occupation of Wyndford High Rise.
A victory for one is a victory for all! Together we are stronger!
Newham council has stated that it is discharging its housing duty towards a survivor of domestic violence, a woman and child who are trying to get their lives back on track after Newham placed them in an overcrowded hostel.
Abused first by a perpetrator of domestic violence and then again by Newham council who has discharged its housing duty, this devastating process where survivors are left in inadequate accommodation has been highlighted by the Public Interest Law Centre in a recent report into how councils are failing to house survivors of domestic violence.
This resident is calling for action at a Newham council meeting on Monday 16 January, outside the Old Town Hall in Stratford. She clearly explains:
‘I am taking action because no one should be labelled intentionally homeless! I was instructed by Newham council to move to a property in an area that is unsafe for me and my child to live in due to past domestic violence. I was scared. I couldn’t do it. Now the council has discharged its housing duty towards me.
Is this what Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz had in mind last year when she promised to end the suffering of families in 10 Victoria street, Stratford E15?‘
In May 2022, Labour Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz was forced, under pressure from Focus E15 campaign and residents of 10 Victoria Street, to declare that by May 2023 all families with children would be moved out of the hostel, which is a shoddy, unsuitable, overcrowded building.
There will be no let up in campaigning while these families are still living in the hostel or being moved into damp, overcrowded, substandard homes and being labelled intentionally homeless for even questioning a housing offer.
Join us on Monday 16 January at 6.30pm onwards to protest and demonstrate outside the council meeting at Stratford Old Town Hall in Newham:
Old Town Hall 29 The Broadway Stratford E15 4BQ
Bring your placards and anger because this council makes mothers and children homeless! Shame on Newham Labour council! Homes not harassment!
Focus E15 Campaign 